An op-ed piece titled “Conservatives, Please Stop Trashing the Liberal Arts” appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal. But it is not conservatives who trashed the liberal arts.

Liberal professors have trashed the liberal arts, by converting so many liberal arts courses into indoctrination centers for left-wing causes and fads, instead of courses where students learn how to weigh conflicting views of the world for themselves. Now a professor of English, one of the most fad-ridden of the liberal arts today, blames conservative critics for the low esteem in which liberal arts are held.

Surely a professor of English cannot be unaware of how English departments, especially, have become hotbeds of self-indulgent, trendy fads such as trashing classic writings — using Shakespeare’s works as just another ideological playground for romping through with the current mantra of “race, class and gender.”

Surely he cannot be unaware of the many farces of the Modern Language Association that have made headlines. And when our English professor uses a phrase like “critical thinking,” he must be at least dimly aware of how often those words have been perverted to mean uncritical negativism toward traditional values and uncritical acceptance of glittering catchwords of the left, such as “diversity.”

Diversity of political ideas is not to be found on most college campuses, where the range of ideas is usually from the moderate left to the extreme left, and conservatives are rare as hen’s teeth among the faculty — especially in English departments. Academics who go ballistic about an “under-representation” of ethnic minorities in various other institutions are blissfully blind to the under-representation of conservatives among the professors they hire. On many campuses, students can go through all four years of college without ever hearing a conservative vision of the world, even from a visiting speaker.

The problem is not political, but educational. As John Stuart Mill pointed out, back in the 19th century, students must hear opposing views from people who actually believe them, not as presented by people who oppose them. In the 18th century, Edmund Burke warned against those who “teach the humours of the professor, rather than the principles of the science.”

During my years on the lecture circuit, I liked to go into college bookstores across the country and see how many of their courses assigned “The Federalist” among the books students were to buy, as compared to how many assigned “The Communist Manifesto” or other iconic writings on the left.

“The Federalist” is a classic, written by three of the men who were among those who wrote the Constitution of the United States. It is a book of profound thoughts, written in plain English, at a level aimed at the ordinary citizen.

It might even be called “The Constitution for Dummies.” There are Supreme Court Justices who could benefit from reading it.

My survey of college bookstores across the country showed “The Communist Manifesto” virtually everywhere, often required reading in multiple courses — and “The Federalist” used virtually nowhere. Most college students will get only the left’s uncritical negativism toward the American form of government, under the rubric of “critical thinking.”

The liberal arts in theory could indeed make valuable contributions to the education of the young, as our English professor claims. But the liberal arts in practice have in fact done the opposite, not just in the United States but in other countries as well.

The history of the 20th century shows soft-subject students and their professors among the biggest supporters of extremist movements, both fascist and communist — the former in central and eastern Europe before World War II and the latter in countries around the world, both before and after that war.

Those who want liberal arts to be what they were supposed to be will have to profoundly change them from what they have become. Doing that will undoubtedly provoke more denunciations of critics for “trashing” the liberal arts by criticizing those who have in fact already trashed the liberal arts in practice.

Case in point: Apparently there is a poll out there that says that the American people are in favor of giving Nuclear Weapons to Iran so they can nuke us with them in the future. Now, how could that be?

Oh, right, the Liberal News Intelligensia (The Liberal Art of TV News) said so and then you click over to “Dancing with The Stars”…That’s how. :)

The sanctimoniously outraged Liberals are on the march AGAIN. Out to hang people in the name of “tolerance”! (the irony of that is lost on them in the fog of their own hatred and mindless zealotry). How dare you oppose us! bAnd the truth doesn’t matter because they are red-eyed bull (ies) who just want to steamroll over all the “haters” (aka people who have a different opinion than the almighty righteous leftist mafia!). After all, you have no choice but to agree with them or else, that’s the American (Left) Way. :)

Earlier this week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a religious freedom bill that some think is discriminatory, and could lead to businesses being allowed to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers. The governor soon found himself under siege by nearly 3,000 angry protestors, according to The Hill. The publication also reported businesses voicing their opposition to the measure, with Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeting his “disgust” over law. Yelp proposed that businesses boycott the state, and said it had cancelled all of its travel there. Angie’s List’s CEO said he plans to cancel a $40 million expansion to their headquarters in Indianapolis, cannibalizing 1,000 jobs over five yeas in the Eastside neighborhood. Oh, and Miley Cyrus called Gov. Pence an “a**hole,” which perfectly captures the hyper- emotionalism exuded by the left that often lends to them taking positions that seek to kill the debate.

Let’s go through the some of the facts about this bill. For starters, 40 percent of states have similar laws (via WaPo):

Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Here are those states, in dark teal: (and they are all bigots!) :)Forty percent of U.S. states have something similar to Indiana, as does the federal government.

The Washington Post also mentioned that President Bill Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act … in 1993. It was introduced in the House of Representatives by then-Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY). By a voice vote, it passed the House, then worked its way to the Senate, where members voted 97-3 in favor of the law. I’m going to bet that these protestors won’t be showing up at Bill Clinton’s residence, or any of the members of the U.S. Senate–current and former–who voted in favor of the bill, to voice their outrage.

This ignorance of the law was exuded during the Hobby Lobby case last summer. Also, it’s worth noting (again) that RFRA isn’t a “blank check” to discriminate.

Here’s RFRA:

(a) IN GENERAL- Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b).(b) EXCEPTION- Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person–

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Here’s Indiana’s law:

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Looping back to Hobby Lobby, Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle had a great post noting that there’s–you know–a process to determine if one’s religious beliefs are genuine [emphasis mine]:

1) What can stop a company from arguing that it is against the owner’s sincere religious beliefs to pay workers a minimum wage?The Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not a blank check to religious groups to do what they want. The law says that the religious belief must be sincerely held, and also that the government can burden the exercise of that belief if it has a compelling state interest that cannot easily be achieved in any other way. That’s why no one has successfully started the Church of Not Paying Any Taxes, though people have been trying that dodge for years.

2) How can we tell if a belief is sincere?

Hobby Lobby closes its stores on Sundays and otherwise demonstrates a pretty deep commitment to fairly stringent Christian values, of which opposition to abortifacients is often a part. There will always be some gray area, of course, that allows people to claim special treatment for spurious beliefs, but the government has done a fair job over the decades of sorting out genuine beliefs from obvious attempts to dodge the law. Hobby Lobby seems to fall pretty squarely within the “sincere belief” camp.

To further quell the left’s hysteria over this law, here is a pro-gay rights law professor, Daniel O. Conkle, writing for USA Today on why Indiana needs RFRA [emphasis mine]:

I am a supporter of gay rights, including same-sex marriage. But as an informed legal scholar, I also support the proposed Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). How can this be?…

The bill would establish a general legal standard, the “compelling interest” test, for evaluating laws and governmental practices that impose substantial burdens on the exercise of religion. This same test already governs federal law under the federal RFRA, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. And some 30 states have adopted the same standard, either under state-law RFRAs or as a matter of state constitutional law.

Applying this test, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a Muslim prisoner was free to practice his faith by wearing a half-inch beard that posed no risk to prison security. Likewise, in a 2012 decision, a court ruled that the Pennsylvania RFRA protected the outreach ministry of a group of Philadelphia churches, ruling that the city could not bar them from feeding homeless individuals in the city parks.

If the Indiana RFRA is adopted, this same general approach will govern religious freedom claims of all sorts, thus protecting religious believers of all faiths by granting them precisely the same consideration.

But granting religious believers legal consideration does not mean that their religious objections will always be upheld.

…

In any event, most religious freedom claims have nothing to do with same-sex marriage or discrimination. The proposed Indiana RFRA would provide valuable guidance to Indiana courts, directing them to balance religious freedom against competing interests under the same legal standard that applies throughout most of the land. It is anything but a “license to discriminate,” and it should not be mischaracterized or dismissed on that basis.

Keep in mind; Conkle also noted that the courts, even in states with RFRA statutes, have rejected recent claims of religious exemptions amongst marriage-related businesses. But also said that those who disagree with gay marriage should have their day in court as well.

The position that wedding-related businesses having the right to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers based on religious grounds is popular. While a plurality of Americans support gay marriage, they also support religious protections for those who disagree as the Associated Press-Gfk poll showed in February. Though, if you head over to Gallup, you’ll find that a solid majority support gay marriage.

Then again, the former finding is not surprising; it’s the 57 percent figure in AP’s poll that show Americans support gay marital rights, but also religious freedom.

In short, this faux outrage is grounded with folks who didn’t get the memo. Actually, it’s probably folks who refuse to read the memo. A Democrat proposed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and it was signed into law by a Democratic president. It’s a 22-year old law! Forty percent of states have RFRA tests within their state laws, and it’s not a “blank check” to discriminate given that there is a high threshold in determining genuine religious beliefs, satisfying a compelling government interest, and making sure the latter is honored in the least intrusive way possible.

Nevertheless, this silliness has forced Gov. Pence to discuss a “clarification” bill with legislators over the weekend.

It’s not necessary.

UPDATE: Seattle Mayor bans municipal workers from traveling to Indiana on city funds. Yet, it appears his state has RFRA statutes

UPDATE: Then-State Senator Barack Obama voted for RFRA in Illinois, which the White House did not refute (via Weekly Standard):

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was signed into federal law by President Bill Clinton more than 20 years ago, and it lays out a framework for ensuring that a very high level of scrutiny is given any time government action impinges on the religious liberty of any American,” Pence said. “After last year’s Hobby Lobby case, Indiana properly brought the same version that then-state senator Barack Obama voted for in Illinois before our legislature.”This Week Host George Stephanoplous later asked White House press secretary Josh Earnest to respond to Pence’s claim: “Josh, you just heard the governor say right there this is the same law, he says, that Barack Obama voted for as a state senator back in Illinois.”

Earnest didn’t dispute the Indiana governor’s statement. “Look, if you have to go back two decades to try to justify something that you’re doing today, it may raise some question about the wisdom of what you’re doing,” Earnest said.

UPDATE: Via HRC: Illinois has a public accommodation law that prohibits discrimination by sexual orientation from private businesses and government entities “that provide services to the general public.” Yet, only 21 states have such accommodations. Again, why is this bill controversial? If this law permits somehow permitted a “blank check” on discrimination, which it does not, it would’ve happened in Indiana and elsewhere long ago.

But the truth doesn’t matter to Liberals, especially “morally outraged” liberals who have no capacity for rational thought and it’s all out nuclear war on anyone who stands in the way of their fight for “tolerance” :)

Republicans are the party of hate. I know this because the media tells me so. You didn’t know? Did you miss a meeting or something?

ReThuglicans are trying to destroy the country’s economy, oppress minorities, drive gay people into the sea and literally destroy the planet. That is, after all, why Ronald Reagan created crack cocaine and AIDS and why the Koch brothers exist, right?

Those are all incredibly stupid statements, but they’re also perhaps exaggerated versions of statements various factions within the Democratic Party’s coalition believe and Democratic leaders espouse.

If ignorance truly was bliss, you’d think progressives and the Democratic base would be among the happiest people in the world. But they’re not. They’re miserable people obsessed with the prospect that someone, somewhere, is having a type of fun they don’t approve of or making more money than someone else. In short: not living in a manner expressly endorsed by leftists.

In a fit of hilarity to anyone who knows history, Democrats routinely attack Republicans for “representing the past,” for “having no new ideas” while espousing and implementing policies that date back to the beginning of the 20th century and have failed everywhere they’ve been tried.

How could they do this? How could they get away with this and fool so many people into believing proven lies?

Like the guy in Times Square playing 3-Card Monte, progressives want to keep the attention on everything but what they’re actually doing.

With President Obama touting failures such as Obamacare as wonderful success stories, no one in the mainstream media is bothering to cover the millions upon millions of Americans who are demonstrably worse off because of the law.

Politics, thanks to the media and the Democratic Party, have become a con game. And we’re all the marks.

When in doubt, when boxed into a corner and someone is on the verge of spotting the red queen in your palm, break out the “ists” and “phobes.”

Racist, sexist and homophobe are the weapons of choice for the Left. Not the weapons of last resort, mind you. These are the first and usually only weapons they use. Where facts should live, only charges of hate reside. And it works.

More than 30 states have Religious Freedom Restoration Acts to protect people of faith from state governments mandating their citizens do things that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. It’s not a permission slip to hate or to discriminate, but you’d never know that by the coverage of Indiana joining those other states this week. But don’t take my word for it, take the word of pro-gay marriage Indiana University law professor Daniel Conkle.

In spite of the fact that almost three dozen states have similar laws, none of which have ended up in the wholesale hunting down of gay people nor any discrimination, the media set about lying to instill fear and anger in the hearts of Americans.

Huffington Post ran a story by blogger Amanda Terkel calling the law “anti-gay.” In it, Terkel writes “Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) quietly signed legislation…” then goes on to add enough qualifiers to twist the story so as to allow it to be “accurate” when no “anti-gay” actions result.

By the way, when Gov. Pence “quietly signed” the bill into law he tweeted a picture of the signing ceremony. That is akin to screaming a secret into the sound system from the 50-yard line at halftime of the Super Bowl. HuffPo is not known for letting facts stand in the way.

But progressive activist blogs weren’t the only ones content to lie about what happened in Indiana. CNN “journalist” Eric Bradner tweeted his story on the new law by saying, “Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signs law allowing businesses to reject gay customers in name of ‘religious freedom.’”

Aside from that not being remotely close to the truth, Bradner couldn’t help himself from putting the words “religious freedom” in quotes not only in his tweet but in the story itself. That’s why I put “journalist” in quotes when referring to CNN’s “politics reporter covering 2016.” Any GOP candidate who gives so much as a quote to this tool shed should be automatically disqualified from consideration.

Bradner’s “reporting” spread across the Internet like a cold on a plane. Contently uninformed progressives from the business world and the entertainment industry were outraged. Someone named Marc Benioff professed his company’s intention to wipe Indiana off its map. “Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination,” the ignorant CEO tweeted.

Oddly, Benioff’s company, SalesForce, gladly does business with the progressive communists in China who imprison and murder its citizens for whatever reason they want, but Americans harming no one is a bridge too far.

The pudgy CEO wasn’t the only millionaire or billionaire to swallow the hook. I’m not going to link to any more of them because it would just give progressive websites money, but Apple CEO Tim Cook, Miley Cyrus, Ashton Kutcher and Mr. Sulu all called for boycotting Indiana. Unthinking minions followed suit, all led by a media that should know better.

They do know better. They just don’t care. The narrative, the progressive agenda, must be advanced.

Having moved on from their “hands up, don’t shoot” lie, some new outrage must be advanced to keep the mindless angry. It’s why the 3-Card Monte guy never stops talking…

Always ready to distract from her own troubles and jump on a left-wing bandwagon, Hillary Clinton tweeted, “Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn’t discriminate against ppl bc of who they love #LGBT.”

Hero…

Personally, I agree with the man who, when he signed the federal version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said, “We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the first amendment is all about. But let us never believe that the freedom of religion imposes on any of us some responsibility to run from our convictions. Let us instead respect one another’s faiths, fight to the death to preserve the right of every American to practice whatever convictions he or she has, but bring our values back to the table of American discourse to heal our troubled land.”

Of course that was a really, really long time ago, way back in 1993, and the man was President Bill Clinton. Something none of those “news” organizations, CEOs, celebrities or any member of the progressive flying monkey outrage army bothered to mention or probably even knew. Googling, like thinking, is too hard for some.

They’re content to label anyone who disagrees with them an “ist” or a “phobe” of some sort, so let’s just call ourselves “Ist-a-Phobes” and cut out the middleman. I’d rather be called that than “progressive” any day of the week.

On the plus side, progressives haven’t yet called for “camps” or mass executions of people who disagree with them. That’s a major step “forward” for them from the last century, so we’ve got that going for us. (Derek Hunter)

Give them time, though they already have the Education system to use and abuse so they don’t have to lock you up physically, just mentally so that you can’t escape. :)

The Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell, the case challenging the Obama administration’s decision to award tax credits for health insurance sold through federally established exchanges, could turn on the question of whether a ruling that ends the tax credits on federal exchanges might cause something known as a “death spiral” in health insurance markets.

The good news is the answer is probably no, but the bad news is that’s only because the death spiral has probably already started.

A death spiral generally occurs when insurers are forced to raise premiums sharply to pay promised benefits. Higher premiums cause many of the healthiest policyholders, who already pay far more in premiums than they receive in benefits, to drop coverage.

When healthy policyholders drop coverage, it leaves the insurer with little choice but to raise premiums again because they now have a risk pool that is less healthy than before. But another premium increase means many of the healthy people who remained now drop their policies, too, and this continues until the only people willing to pay the now-very-high premiums are those with serious medical conditions.

The death spiral isn’t just a theory. Eight states learned this the hard way in the 1990s when they enacted two policies known as “community rating” and “guaranteed issue,” requiring health insurers to sell coverage to anyone who wanted it at the same price.

This quickly set off a death spiral because people knew they could wait until they were sick or injured to buy insurance, and premiums rose sky-high as healthy people exited the individual insurance market while the sick remained.

New Jersey enacted both community rating and guaranteed issue in 1992. By 2003, the lowest monthly premium for a family policy in the state was $3,810 and nearly 40 percent of the people in the individual market had dropped their coverage.

Obamacare includes both community rating and guaranteed issue. The hope of the politicians who passed Obamacare was the individual mandate would keep the relatively healthy from dropping insurance coverage, thereby avoiding a death spiral.

They hoped to FORCE people to pay by government cudgel to avoid the inevitable. Remove the choice to cause the death spiral and subsidize the hell out of it (literally and figuratively). Sounds like an Agenda rather a “good” thing, doesn’t it? :)

During oral arguments in King, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed concerns that not allowing subsidies in the 37 states using the federally established exchange would set off a death spiral in those states. Their fear was that while subsidies would no longer be available, and there would effectively be no individual mandate, community rating and guaranteed issue would remain.

Many commentators saw Justice Kennedy’s comments as a signal he isn’t willing to stop subsidies on federal exchanges, either because of the serious consequences of doing so or because surely Congress could not have intended to put states in the position of choosing between creating an Obamacare exchange or seeing health insurance markets destroyed.

What Justice Kennedy and many others may not understand, however, is the death spiral is probably already underway in all 50 states, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in this case.

According to the Manhattan Institute, premiums climbed by 41 percent on average from 2013 to 2014, and premiums are likely to rise sharply again after two insurance company bailout programs included in Obamacare expire in 2017.

The other sign health insurance markets are in the early stages of a death spiral is the age mix of those buying policies through Obamacare. Originally it was estimated that around 40 percent of enrollees had to be in the relatively healthy 18 to 34-year-old age segment, so their premiums could be used to pay for the health expenses of older, less-healthy enrollees. So far it appears only some 28 percent of enrollees are in that coveted age group, which also comprises around half of the uninsured.

All of this means insurers are getting a risk pool that is less healthy than expected, and more premium hikes are around the corner. While subsidies hide some from the full impact, others in the middle class will not be shielded.

It will undoubtedly take a few years to know for sure, but for anybody concerned about setting off a death spiral or thinking Congress surely didn’t intend to do so, don’t worry. It looks like it’s already here, whether Congress intended it or not.

There seems to be no end to the damage President Obama will inflict upon the nation of Israel. While wooing a genocidal regime in Tehran, this administration has treated our staunchest Middle East ally with a mix of pettiness, contempt and rage.

Following Benjamin Netanyahu’s huge election victory, Obama grumbled that it was time to “reassess” America’s relationship with Israel. Monday he began that effort when, for the first time ever, the U.S. delegation refused to speak in defense of Israel at the UN Human Rights Council. The council was adhering to the sinister-sounding Agenda Item 7, which mandates the discussion of “Israeli human rights violations” at every meeting.

Now the administration has shifted from mere rhetoric and diplomatic maneuvers to irreparable harm. The Jewish Press revealed that the U.S. has declassified Top Secret intelligence on Israel’s nuclear program:

The United States has just revealed a stunning amount of information on some of Israel’s the most closely guarded secrets: information about its military cooperation with America and 20 years’ worth of details on Israel’s nuclear technology development, up to the 1980s.

The 386-page report, composed in 1987 by the federally funded Institute for Defense Analysis, (an NGO that operates under the Pentagon), is titled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations.”

It was declassified by the Pentagon in early February – but oddly, the report has been redacted so as to black out or withhold everything the Institute wrote on America’s NATO allies – but to reveal all that American experts assembled in Israel.

Interestingly, no one reported the declassification other than two hostile news agencies that apparently were tipped off: Russia’s Putin-funded RT network and Iran’s mullah-funded Press TV. The Weekly Standard explains why this report’s release is such a big deal:

Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons. To do so might spark a regional nuclear arms race, and eventual nuclear confrontation.

The declassification is a serious breach of decades’ old understandings concerning this issue between Israel and its north American and certain European allies.

The Pentagon’s February declassification coincided with intense pressure on the Netanyahu government by the Obama administration, trying to force the Israeli prime minister to cancel a planned speech to Congress questioning the wisdom of a highly risky nuclear deal with the Iranian regime.

However, in the past 24 hours several media in the U.S. and elsewhere have now chosen to report on the February declassification by the Pentagon. This coincides with stepped up efforts this week by the Obama administration to weaken Israel’s deterrent capabilities, including leaking to the Wall Street Journal incorrect allegations that Israel directly spies on the U.S.

Consider me unsurprised that the guy who smiled and nodded his way through two decades of anti-semitic sermons and is friends with Israel haters like Rashid Khalidi and Bill Ayers is doing everything he can to undermine that nation. I wouldn’t be surprised by year’s end to see Obama refer to Israel as “the Zionist entity.”

It will be interesting to watch politically savvy Democrats distance themselves from Obama’s intensifying assault on the Middle East’s only democracy. Hopefully they won’t wait for Iran to get nukes before speaking up. (they will, and it’ll be GWB’s fault!)

Question for the comment section: Why should any ally trust the U.S. government now? (Jon Gabriel)

Under Obama, you can’t. Period. Neither can America.

THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA now matter how narcissistic, petty,dangerous, or unconstitutional it is no one is safe from THE EGO FROM THE DAWN OF TIME!

Raise the cost of something, and inevitably demand for that thing goes down. It’s a venerable principle in economics.

So five years ago when ObamaCare was being enacted, we and many others warned that its coverage mandates for employers would result in hours being cut back and workers being laid off. We were criticized at the time as Chicken Littles. Now comes a survey of 743 personnel executives by the Society of Human Resource Management, as reported by Robert King of the Washington Examiner, that shows businesses are doing just that. Nearly 14% of firms have cut part-time hours for workers, King wrote, and another 6% plan to do so.

Still worse, 5% of companies have already either cut or plan to cut the total number of workers they have, thanks to ObamaCare.

ObamaCare’s employer mandate requires businesses with 100 or more employees to provide health insurance to 70% of their workers who put in 30 or more hours a week. That goes up to 95% next year.

Meanwhile, small businesses with 50 to 99 workers will start feeling the pinch in 2016, when the mandate hits them, too.

So it’s only logical: Businesses are cutting hours to avoid having to pay for the mandate — a predictable response in the real world, but apparently not in the world of the economists, politicians and planners who concocted ObamaCare’s destructive rules.

As for “bending the cost-curve down,” as President Obama promised repeatedly, forget about it. The survey found that 77% of companies had higher health-care costs this year than last year, and just 6% saw their costs decrease. For those who had costs rise, 24% saw costs go up 16% or more.

If you want to know why this job recovery has been the worst since the Great Depression, you need look no further than these depressing statistics.

In September 2009, President Obama addressed Congress, vowing that his healthcare plan would “slow the growth of healthcare costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.” But costs for all three have actually grown.

During the campaign in 2008, Obama repeatedly said that his health reform plan would save the average family $2,500 a year in premiums. But this year, almost half of those surveyed by CBS and the New York Times characterized “the affordability of basic medical care as a hardship.” That’s a quarter more people than said so last year.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, the New York Times, and Avalere Health crunched government numbers and concluded that even premiums for coverage offered on the exchanges would rise between 2 and 5% during 2015.

Meanwhile, a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research determined that premiums in the non-group market in 2014 increased by 24.4% over what they would have cost without Obamacare.

Costs for small businesses have also grown. Last year, the average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance for an individual exceeded $5,700. That’s 23% more than in 2009, the year before Obamacare was signed into law.

One in 10 businesses has laid off workers to cope with growing healthcare costs. And “one-third of small firms say they are purposefully not growing as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” according to a National Small Business Association Survey.

Meanwhile, one in five companies has reduced employee hours to avoid falling afoul of Obamacare’s employer mandate, which requires companies with 100 or more employees who work more than 30 hours a week to provide health insurance this year. Next year, companies with 50 or more workers will be subject to the mandate.

Companies who fail to comply must pay fines of the lesser of $3,000 per employee who receives subsidies in Obamacare’s insurance exchanges or $2,000 for every worker after the first 30.

The cost of Obamacare has also grown dramatically for the government — and thus for taxpayers. In 2009, President Obama claimed that his plan would cost a little more than $900 billion over the next decade. But according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, the law’s net price tag has ballooned to nearly $1.2 trillion.

The law’s ballooning cost is largely the result of its failure to slow overall health spending. Nationwide, health spending grew 5% in 2014, compared to a 3.6% increase the year prior, according to a new report from Altarum Institute. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services forecast spending to grow by 6% a year from 2015 through 2023 — “largely as a result of the continued implementation of the ACA coverage expansions.”

To make matters worse, the health law has also failed to deliver “the best care, not just the most expensive care,” as the President promised in 2009. Under Obamacare, Americans now have fewer healthcare options than before.

The number of insurers selling to individual consumers in the exchanges has dropped by more than 20% compared to the year before Obamacare took effect, according to the Heritage Foundation. Consumers who buy coverage on the exchanges often find that their preferred hospitals are out of network, McKinsey & Co. reports.

Meanwhile, Deloitte surveyed 20,000 doctors and discovered that many are cutting their work hours or leaving the practice of medicine altogether. USA TODAY recently reported that many doctors are limiting their intake of patients who bought coverage on the exchanges; the reimbursement rates offered by their policies are just too low.

“Physicians who are in solo practices have to be careful not to take too many patients reimbursed at lower rates or they’re not going to be in business too long,” said the President of the Medical Society of the State of New York.

For patients, this exodus of doctors translates into less access, longer waits before appointments, and less one-on-one time with the few doctors who will see them. Last year, patients had to wait an average of 18 days for appointments with specialty doctors. This waiting game is “going to get worse and not better,” according to a study from consultancy Merritt Hawkins.

But since it “felt good” and they “had the best of intentions” and it’s all the fault of evil insurance companies the Liberal won’t hold themselves responsible for making things much worse than if they hadn’t meddled in the first place.

Ford is hoping to prevent accidents and speeding tickets by introducing cars that can see what the speed limit is and preventing heavy-footed motorists from driving any faster. Ford’s Intelligent Speed Limiter tech will first appear on the new Ford S-Max that’s launching in Europe that could just change the way that we drive.

And we all know liberals prefer anything that comes out of Europe as it’s more “civilized” than dirty, grungy, evil capitalist America. :)

This sounds like a great option to have if you know you’re a bit too easily tempted to slip over the speed limit, especially when driving in a new area. The local limit will be displayed in the car’s dash so if you missed a sign you can rest easy knowing the car didn’t.

Yeah, just trying “going the speed limit” on The Squawk Peak Freeway and watch people honk at you and go around you like you’re crawling along.

But it might be a good idea in Paradise Valley where they love speed traps. :)

Does it read School Zones? (apparently not as it has a lower limit of 20 mph so anything under that is your old school problem).

A camera mounted on the windshield scans the road signs on the sides of the highway and, when the vehicle enters a 20mph zone, the system reduces the top speed to match. Rather than controlling the speed with automatic braking, the car limits its own velocity by adjusting the amount of fuel being pushed to the engine.

If a burst of speed is required, however, users can either deactivate the system by pressing a button on the console or temporarily get past it with a hard press on the gas pedal. If the vehicle is coasting downhill and starts to build up speed, the car will sense its motion and sound an alarm to get you braking. It’s not the only bit of new safety tech available on the new whip, either, since deep-pocketed motorists can also get pedestrian detection and collision warnings. That frees drivers up to wonder why any car firm would call a car SMAX and think we wouldn’t notice.

Smacks of government intervention. So if you press the button to deactivate it and never re-activate it will there be a fine or penalty for that coming down the pike?? Or maybe your insurance will deny your claim?

Or when they decide that you can’t override it, “for your own good”?

Remember when Seat Belts “dinged” at you incessantly and they had to limit the time on them or else they’d ding until the cow’s come home?

The government and the manufacturers can only engineer so much of human behavior, for now.

But they will make it more like your living room to distract you though:

Ford has unveiled the Service Delivery Network, a cloud-based platform that uses Microsoft Azure to put internet services in your car, whether they’re app-based remote controls (like telling your car to warm up in the morning) or Sync updates.

So how long before we get anti-distraction software that says you can’t use it while driving because it’s unsafe? :)

And anybody else worried that all this technology is going to make for a less alert driver because the car is “watching out for you” so much you can do your nails or read the newspaper much more efficiently then?

Or is that just boring old, old/no “old fart” tech me??

oh, then theirs HACKERS:

Technology is slowly becoming integrated into many different aspects of cars, requiring an internet connection to function to its full potential – talking to nearby vehicles, being aware of road conditions, getting traffic data via the cloud – and we are increasingly closer to completely internet-dependent vehicles.

However, while cars are becoming more dependent on internet-connected technology – whether it’s in the dashboard, entertainment system, brakes, acceleration, lights and so on – cyber criminals are gaining a greater understanding of how to hack into web-based systems and therefore hijack cars powered in this way.

This essentially means being able to break into a vehicle without actually touching it, or taking control without being inside. (The inquirer)

Taking your car to the dealership because it was hacked (or “my car has a virus”), now that’s an auto repair bill too far, don’t you think?

You don’t have to be Frank Luntz or George Lakoff to know that linguistic framing matters a great deal in politics. Sometimes, however, nuance is in the eye of the beholder.

House Republicans unveiled their budget this week, an ambitious plan which balances the budget over 10 years and repeals Obamacare.

One word appears throughout the document, one which New Republic writer Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig believes should be “eliminated” because it subtly divides people into “makers and takers.”

The word? “Taxpayer.”

The word she believes should be used instead? “People.”

So Orwellian it hurts!

The New Republic’s Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig considers “taxpayer” an ideologically weighted term. A Conservative term, so it must therefore be evil.

In the 43-page budget, the word “taxpayer” and its permutations appear 24 times, as often as the word “people.”

It’s worthwhile to compare these usages, because the terms are, in a sense, rival ideas. While “people” designates the broadest possible public as the subject of a political project, “taxpayer” advances a considerably narrower vision—and that’s why we should eliminate it from political rhetoric and punditry.

Well, yes, “taxpayer” is a narrower term because not all people are taxpayers. But somehow that distinction is now deemed discriminatory.

…[T]axpayer terminology also seems to subtly promote the idea that a person’s share in our democratic governance should depend upon their contribution in taxes…Our share in democracy arises not from what we can pay into it, but from the fact that we are persons and personhood confers certain obligations and dues.

In both President Obama’s and the GOP’s budget proposals, the terms “taxpayer” and “taxpayer dollars” or variations thereof are used, referencing government’s responsibility to use the funds wisely and efficiently.

But even the fact that taxpayer dollars came from taxpayers and therefore taxpayers should be happy with how they are used is somehow a touchy issue:

If money owed in taxes is imagined, as in the budget plan … to belong to the taxpayer, then programs operating off of public revenue do seem to have some obligation to correspond to their funders’ consent, and serving the interests of others does seem unfair. But these are all obfuscations brought on by the term.

Bruenig ends with characterizing all who use the term “taxpayer” as “carrying political water.”

Orwell at it’s finest.

“It forgets that its financial resources come from hard-working American taxpayers who wake up every day, go to work, actively grow our economy and create real opportunity.” In other words, Americans’ taxes are parallel with taxpayers’ consent, suggesting that expenditures that do not correspond to an individual’s will are some kind of affront. The report goes on to argue that food stamps, public housing assistance, and development grants are judged not on whether they achieve improved health and economic outcomes for the recipients or build a stronger community, but on the size of their budgets. It is time these programs focus on core functions and responsibilities, not just on financial resources. In so doing this budget respects hard-working taxpayers who want to ensure their tax dollars are spent wisely.

…[A]s the Republican authors of this budget know well, the beneficiaries of welfare programs tend to receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, because they are in most cases low-income. The “taxpayers” this passage has in mind, therefore, don’t seem to be the recipients of these welfare programs, but rather those who imagine that they personally fund them. By this logic, the public is divided neatly into makers and takers, to borrow the parlance of last election’s Republicans…

…Public revenue is just that: a pool of public money to be used for the good of the public, not 300 million pools of private money each to be used to serve private individuals’ interests. What is in the interest of the public may involve expenditures that can’t be filed in a pay-in-cash-out formula, as the “taxpayer” terminology would suggest.

The she goes on to complain that this “formula” would be bad for kids, roads, utilities, ad nauseum because after all they are a “necessary social function” and “provides for the common good” and if we continue to use the ideologically conservative word “taxpayer” we will in due course steal candy from babies, destroy and neglect our children, old people, roads, bridges,environment etc. Hell will be let loose on earth!

We must ban any hot button conservative-leaning words that remind people where all this “free” money and “necessary social function” comes from.

We just want them to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our Socialist labor and not question where it came from.

The threat of failing may no longer be such a consequence for underperforming students in some Virginia schools. Why? School administrators in the city of Fairfax are prepared to ban zeroes to spare students’ feelings.

The little cherubs will be scared for life if they fail, so let’s make it all warm and fuzzy so they never ever fail. That’s how real life works, all all. :)

In Montgomery County, students cannot be given a score lower than 50 percent “unless they did not actually do the assignment or put in effort to do it,” said schools spokesman Dana Tofig. In Loudoun County, the grading practices regarding zeros varies school to school, said spokesman Wayde Byard.

Starting as early as this year, grades in northern Virginia could have more of an emphasis on “classroom effort,” and less on actual test scores, according to the report.

Oh look, he made an effort, A+ for that. The fact that they are dumber than a post doesn’t matter because we’ll teach them all about social and economic injustice and when they graduate and they are too stupid to get a job they can go on the government dole and we’ll take care of them for the rest of their lives.

Now that’s fair, isn’t it?

In addition to eliminating zeroes, schools could also allow students to turn in corrections on incorrect test answers.

Do Over! Yeah, when you mistake inches for millimeters (if these idiots would even understand that) and crash the space probe into the planet you can just yell “Do Over!”. Or when you steal money from your boss because “you need it” and get caught, “Do Over!”.

Some perks! If I knew I could simply redo all my work, I wouldn’t have spent nearly so much time studying the first time around.

No kidding. Just keep failing until you succeed, that’s how real life works. :)

This is the likely mindset many students will adopt knowing about the relaxed repercussions. Back in middle school and high school, when my teacher put my completed test on my desk with red ink that announced my grade, I knew it was permanent. Now, that red ink doesn’t even have to dry by the time students can apply the whiteout.

If they even mark it, after all, isn’t that also a social stigma? :)

Some people believe this is in the student’s best interests.

Education consultant and grading expert Ken O’Connor said movements to standardize grading systems are picking up steam. He also said that giving students a zero is “morally and ethically wrong.”

“As soon as a kid gets even one zero, they have no chance of success,” O’Connor said, noting that the student has to then achieve perfect results to recover academically.

That’s why you have to work hard to avoid that happening in the first place. And ounce of prevention…instead of a suit of shock absorbers.

I have two words for Mr. O’Connor: Ben Carson. Actually, make that three words: Dr. Ben Carson. When Carson was in elementary school, he routinely received failing grades. With his mother’s urging and encouragement, however, he turned those scores around and became one of the most renowned neurosurgeons in the world. It’s obvious that his early struggles in school pushed him to not only overcome, but to excel.

But he’s an evil conservative so he was obviously part of a cabal, it could have been because he worked hard.

Student representatives in Virginia, however, argue that the new grading system would provide an easier path for students to get into college.

The teach remedial classes to freshman as it is. Soon college will just be high school, or worse.

That sounds nice and all, but did they consider the student’s well being when he or she makes it into a college for which they’re not qualified? After being so coddled in middle school and high school, they’d be in for quite a shock dealing with the often merciless university workloads. Oh by the way, good luck convincing your professor to give you a do over.

:) That’s why they have to have so many Liberal professors.

Students don’t need to be shielded from ‘F’s. Do you know anyone who has made it through school who did not fail at least one assignment?

I may have failed an assignment or two but over all I never failed a class until Geometry in High School. I got to take it again in summer school. Yeah! :)

But then again, my parents were grade and success oriented people and they passed that need to succeed onto their kids.

That doesn’t mean they’re stupid – it just means in that particular instance they perhaps didn’t work quite as hard or study quite as much as they should have. I imagine that grade did not return the next time. Failing grades are not death sentences – they’re wake up calls. They gave Dr. Carson and his mom a steely determination to succeed – and they can have the same response today.

But it makes them “feel bad” and we don’t want to hurt their fragile psyches…

Don’t ban zeroes, Virginia. Consider how rewarding it is for both student and teacher when those failing grades turn into perfect scores.

Commentor: Wow. Another example of dumbing down the students. When will people realize that life is not fair and all the efforts in the world will not correct that? Somethings are beyond our human ability to adjust/correct. Going through difficult times strengthens you, if you have the right attitude about it. Having someone else always fix or coddle you through it, only weakens you. As a society we have become so risk adverse that we will stop performing in a productive manner, but move backward.

That’s PROGRESSIVE Liberalism for you, progressing backwards!

And when this doesn’t work, there will be a massive increase in grade inflation from the Liberal Educators because, after all, it’s “for their own good”. :)

(and then the side effect is that Liberal education looks like it’s succeeding when it’s not and I’m sure the Teacher’s Unions and their own agenda and egos have nothing to do with that!)

More Links

Like this:

Students at Pine Bush High School in Pine Bush, New York, knew right away there was something not quite right about the Pledge of Allegiance. That’s because the pledge was being recited in Arabic.

“One nation under Allah,” the student body president announced over the intercom system on Wednesday.

Knowingly and with aforethought as you’ll see.

Reaction in the upstate New York high school was swift, and so was the backlash, The Times Herald-Record reports. Furious students tried to shout down the recitation in their classrooms. Other students sat down in protest.

Islamophobia!! :)

School Superintendent Joan Carbone told the newspaper that the Arabic pledge “divided the school in half” – noting that many complaints came from Jewish parents and those who had lost family members fighting the war on terror.

The Two halves: The Righteous Left and those other people who are offended by our righteousness, the heathens!

The outrage among students was so significant that the school issued an apology.

“We sincerely apologize for having the Pledge of Allegiance recited this morning in the high school in a language other than English,” the apology read. “In our school district the Pledge of Allegiance will only be recited in English as recommended by the Commissioner of Education.”

That “apology” (for your offense at our “inclusiveness”) is so lame it was probably written and delivered by a computer.

But as you will read later in the article the Student Body President, our little cherub of joy, knew precisely what he was doing so the school administration knew EXACTLY what they were doing but because they are holiewr-than-thou liberals there intention were good and they were doing “the right thing” so they don’t understand why you’d be offended by that.

Well, that’s somewhat reassuring.

The exercise in tolerance clearly had the opposite effect, inciting outrage from Jewish parents, veterans and some students. Though school superintendent Joan Carbone ultimately admitted that the Arabic pledge had “divided the school in half” and was “something that was supposed to be good but turned out not to be,” she maintained that it had been an attempt to “celebrate the many races, cultures and religions that make up this great country and our school district.” (HuffPo)

It was an innocent, and heartfelt attempt at “diversity” and it made them “feel good” and they had the best of intentions so why are you all such right wing haters?

However, state regulations do not mandate that the pledge be recited in a specific language. It recommends only specific wording.

Otherwise, they’d be “racist”. :)

108.5 Pledge to the flag.

(a) It is recommended that schools use the following pledge to the flag:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

(b) In giving the pledge to the flag, the procedure is to render the pledge by standing with the right hand over the heart.

The school said the pledge was recited in Arabic as a way to honor National Foreign Language Week “and in an effort to celebrate the many races, cultures and religions that make up this great country.” It said the pledge had been recited in other languages throughout the week.

Fascinating, out of the 1000’s of languages to pick from they just happen to pick the most left wing politically correct one. After all, we are ONLY offended because it was Arabic, if it had been Mauri we wouldn’t be outraged. So, I’m sure this wasn’t done to incite people and to further their liberal ideology of “tolerance”. Nope, Not at all deliberately inflammatory. :)

That explanation didn’t set well with student Alex Krug.

“I think it should be said in English,” he told television station TWCNews.com. “It is foreign language week but we don’t even offer Arabic in Pine Bush High School.”

Andrew Zink, the student body president, defended what he did and said he would do it all over again – telling TWC News he “knew exactly what would happen” because “it’s the right thing to do.”

Zink wrote on his Twitter account: “To everyone who disagrees with my decisions, I respect your right to do so and hope we can have a productive conversation,”

A Liberal’s idea of a “productive conversation” is for you to listen to them, and then agree with them 100% because that is very productive for you. :)

Oh, there’s been no shortage of conversation around the small town.

He also said: “What makes you American is not the language you speak, but the ideas you believe in,” he said.

Of course, all of his ideas are mindlessly Liberal and “the right thing to do”. Heil!

Pine Bush administrators also quashed his plan to hold a student rally to discuss the fervor, explaining that the school had been threatened with violence.

He’s quite the liberal activist isn’t he. I’m sure his “discussion” would have been conducted in a very mature and respectful way. <<snicker>> NOT!

According to the Leftist over at Thinkprogress: Pine Bush has been the subject of controversy before, and is currently embroiled in a lawsuit filed by several local Jewish families who claim their children were victims of anti-Semitic harassment while in class. It’s also not the first time a high school has stoked ire for reciting the pledge in Arabic; in 2013, a multicultural club at Rocky Mountain High School in Colorado recited an Arabic version of the pledge before the student body, resulting in a slew of angry calls from parents.

Well, Liberals are growing ever more anti-Semitic in the name of “tolerance”. Heil!

“Thanks to the illegal invasion and the concept of ‘celebrate diversity,’ English is becoming a foreign language in America,” one critic wrote on the local newspaper’s website.

A writer who claimed to be an American of Arab Christian ancestry said he, too, was offended by what happened.

“The Pledge of Allegiance isn’t a ‘salute’ to America,” he wrote. “It’s a promise to be loyal to it. Part of that loyalty should be to learn English and integrating into our culture.”

Based on the comments made by the student body president, it appears the Arabic recitation was less about celebrating a foreign language and more about stirring up trouble.

It was.

In my most recent book, “God Less America,” I illustrate how the nation’s public schools have been turned into indoctrination centers. Teachers are preaching a liberal ideology. Our schoolhouses have become places where Christianity is marginalized and Islam is given accommodation. (Todd Starnes)

Sadyia Khalique, a spokeswoman for the New York chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, said: “All Americans who value our nation’s history of religious and ethnic diversity should be concerned” by the reaction and subsequent apology. (BBC)

I have to laugh at Starbucks. I haven’t drank coffee in over 30 years so I have no investment whatsoever in their business, but I just have to laugh.

Some White Liberals elitist executives (90% of Starbucks corporate leadership are white) thought it would be a real “feel good” moment to get people to “talk” about race relations at their stores.

“So how do you feel about the plight of the black youths today?” with your cafe’ latte “and that’ll be $6.

Hilarious!

Only the mind of a hippy liberal would have thought this was a good idea.

Well, they had good intentions, the liberals would say.

Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Just look at Obama!

Typical of Liberals.

We’ll all just sit around drink our double mocha Caffè macchiato and pontificate about race in America with our customers (said with a pompous posh British upper class voice).

Did anyone ask the Baristas about putting their necks on the chopping block? Of course not. Corporate thought it was a “good idea” to “do something positive” for the public at large.

Then they pass out “the test” to see how racist you really are and how guilty the hippie Leftist can make you feel. :)

It’s like Democrat Debbie (Wasermann-Schultz) tweeting out “tell me your favourite Democrat policies” and failing to understand that she just invited herself to be nuked.

But the doey-eyed hippy white guilt liberals just don’t understand that life is not as simple minded as they are.

It made them “feel good” about themselves so we want to make other feel good too.

BARF!

The fact that what they did was in fact JUST AS RACIST as the stuff that made them feel sad and that they didn’t know that is hilarious!

Is taking your coffee “black” racist?? :)

“Over the last few months, I have tried to seek out other influential people who have a greater understanding than I do of the issue of race and racial injustice in America.” CEO of Starbuscks said. Yeah, they were all white and all Liberal (or racist black people like Al Sharpton) “intellectuals” no doubt.

Schultz argued that the idea is to have a “positive effect on the national conversation” and help people understand that everyone has their unconscious biases.

Unfortunately, like most Liberals he doesn’t understand his own, but projects them at others.

The backlash over Starbucks’ dumb #racetogether campaign, in which employees are “encouraged” to discuss racial issues with their customers, arrived quickly. Among the numerous questions: whose dumb idea was this? Did the corporate honchos at Starbucks take into consideration whether their employees were well-equipped to have difficult conversations about race? Were they aware that they could be placing their baristas into hostile situations that they’re unprepared to diffuse? Was this the ultimate form of White Guilt? Or was the coffee company trying to capitalize off the growing news and discussion over racial issues in America?

Maybe they gave them “sensitivity” training? A video or two?? Nah, they just threw them to the wolves because it made THEM “feel good” because they were “doing something”. Which is the excuse for most Liberal ideas that fail miserably.

Naturally, people turned to Corey DuBrowa, Starbucks’ Senior Vice President of Communications, to find answers to these questions:

Yes: DuBrowa, a middle-aged white man, who was part of a corporate team that commanded their baristas to discuss race issues with their customers, deleted his Twitter account after people tried to discuss race issues with him.

In a statement to PR Week, DuBrowa said that he would come back on Twitter, but only when people stopped being so gosh darn negative to him:

DuBrowa explained that he shut down his Twitter account for a simple reason.

“My Twitter account was targeted around midnight [on Tuesday], and the tweets represented a distraction from the respectful conversation we’re trying to have around Race Together,” he said.

Translation: “Distraction”: People aren’t doing what we wanted them to do, which was of course was to fess up about how guilty they are of being racists.

Translation: “respectful conservation”: Hey! you’re suppose to be 100% in agreement with me and do as we say or else I’ll take my marbles and go home…

DuBrowa added that he will be back on the social network soon, and Starbucks has announcements planned for its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday that will provide more details about and context around Race Together.

Translation: The corporate PR people will be working overtime to try and fix/spin this mess and we’ll roll out our pig with some new lipstick soon!

David Calpo, an ordinary citizen responder, on the article from Mediaite above hit on the head:

Subatomic-particle-thin-skinned extreme-leftist execs who shut down social media accounts just because prospective customers ask them difficult questions about idiotic policies are JUST the kind of people that need to be training their employees how to handle situations beyond their own and their company’s core competency that they themselves initiate. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!?!

They had the best of intention and it made them “feel good” so what could possibly go wrong! :)

Liberalism in microcosm.

These baristas seem to know that customers are supposed to patronize businesses, businesses are NOT supposed to patronize their customers. (But it made management “feel good” about “doing something”).
One Grande Bold Coffee please, hold the white guilt. :)

No matter what happens, the alarmists blame man for changing the climate. In their minds, there are no other explanations. In reality, there can be many, with melting in Antarctica as one example.

Indeed, a massive glacier in East Antarctica that holds vast amounts of water is melting. Should it thaw completely, the water it releases could contribute to a rise in sea levels. The question, of course, is why is the Totten Glacier, which is about 75 miles long and roughly 20 miles wide, melting?

And while we ponder that, let’s not forget that a complete meltdown of Totten would likely take centuries, not months or even years. New York and Los Angeles won’t be underwater by the end of the summer.

Research published online Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience concludes that Totten’s retreat might be caused by a valley or trough of warm water flowing beneath the glacier, melting it from the bottom up.

“Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics in the Jackson School of Geosciences,” says a March 16 news release from the school, “have discovered two seafloor gateways that could allow warm ocean water to reach the base of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica’s largest and most rapidly thinning glacier.”

Media reports scrupulously avoid saying this is man’s fault, though it’s clear they desperately want to say it is. The alarmist community can’t let the narrative fade. But any honest reading of the school’s summary will lead the reader to strongly infer that the warm water is an entirely natural event not caused by man.

Which is not to say the scary scenarios aren’t there. “The ice flowing through Totten Glacier alone,” the report says, “is sufficient to raise global sea level by at least 11 feet, equivalent to the contribution of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet if it were to completely collapse.”

Meanwhile, a Washington Post handwringer says that the Australian government’s Antarctic Division believes the glacier is losing an amount of ice “equivalent to 100 times the volume of Sydney Harbor every year.”

But again, is this the fault of humans? The researchers can’t say that, but one tried to place guilt by innuendo. He told the media, “The last IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report said that if this kind of thing happens, it’s going to add several tens of centimeters of sea level rise to their estimate of one meter.”

He didn’t distinguish, however, the sizable difference between an IPCC prediction that says man will cause sea levels to rise and a rise of entirely natural causes. The thought he wanted to plant in the public’s mind is that everything is happening the way the IPCC said.

We get the same from a report co-authored by Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. “This is another example of how human-induced climate change could be triggering major changes with knock-on impacts that will be felt globally,” he said.

“Could be” also means “might not be.” Which means that scientists don’t know. Yet quite a few of them and the entire political left want to spend hundreds of billions that would choke Western economies, and authorize governments to regiment ostensibly free societies, because of some “could be” notion.

To rational thinkers, this doesn’t make sense. But to true believers in the global warming faith, to researchers who are deeply invested in the narrative and to anti-capitalists who want to use global warming as justification for forcing everyone into statist systems, it does.

But sincerity in their beliefs can’t turn guesswork into fact. It only muddles the debate and confuses the issue. It’s not too hard to believe that’s their goal.

Ever know a liberal to want to clarity? Confusion & fear are their stock in trade.

Global Warming Science is Political Science, not any other kind of science.

Wanna know how bad Obama, Holder and Company have made race relations in their Divide and Conquer strategy??

Well, look no further than Mesa, AZ yesterday.

6 people were shot, 1 died, when a 3 time convicted felon decided to go off on people yesterday.

He was White.

He had “Skinhead” tattooed on his forehead.

He didn’t give much resistance when cornered at an abandoned condo he broke into.

They tasered him.

So almost immediately on social media there were numerous individuals who were calling this “white privilege” because they didn’t shoot and kill him like “they would a black person”.

Seriously?

Yes. These people were serious.

Then, there were threads that said if he was killed there would have been thread saying he deserved to be killed because he was White.

“Since he is alive he must be white.”

“And could you honestly sit there and tell me that if he was black or arab, he would’ve been alive still?” (CNN Twitter feed)

It was discriminatory that he wasn’t killed, like a black guy.

THAT is how bad Obama & Co have made it.

Students at Appalachian State University in North Carolina are being admonished by a residential adviser who is urging them to “check” no fewer than seven types of privilege, Campus Reform reports.

The dangerous privileges to be checked were all listed on a bulletin board in the campus’ East Hall, and included “white privilege,” “male privilege,” “Christian privilege,” “heterosexual privilege,” able-bodied privilege,” “class privilege” and even “cisgender privilege” (a person is “cisgender” if their stated gender matches their physical sex).

By each kind of privilege is a flyer informing students in greater detail of the myriad ways they can experience privilege. The flyers were created at the University of San Francisco to facilitate national efforts in privilege-checking.

“If you’re confident that the police exist to protect you, you have white male privilege,” one flyer declares. Another says “If you can use public bathrooms without stares, fear or anxiety, you have cisgender privilege.”

To bolster its point, the board is populated with pictures of Internet memes that are apparently intended to be humorous.

“I don’t see color,” one picture of while male reads. ”Which means I also deny having white privilege.” Another one says “I have the privilege of being totally unaware of my own privilege.”

Sophomore student Mike Herbert told Campus Reform that the bulletin board came across like a “slap in the face.”

“Although a lot of us have similar views as he does, we feel like it’s a giant middle finger to us.” Herbert said. “It’s very condescending. It’s arrogant. It’s very holier-than-thou.”

Herbert said that another flyer, posted in a bathroom, told students that if they didn’t understand “what was wrong with [them],” they were welcome to visit the RA’s room to be “enlighten[ed].”

We’re all doomed. The Left has poisoned the future for their own politics while sanctimoniously proclaiming they are making it better.

It is fascinating to see brilliant people belatedly discover the obvious — and to see an even larger number of brilliant people never discover the obvious.

A recent story in a San Francisco newspaper says that some restaurants and grocery stores in Oakland’s Chinatown have closed after the city’s minimum wage was raised. Other small businesses there are not sure they are going to survive, since many depend on a thin profit margin and a high volume of sales.

At an angry meeting between local small business owners and city officials, the local organization that had campaigned for the higher minimum wage was absent. They were probably some place congratulating themselves on having passed a humane “living wage” law. The group most affected was also absent — inexperienced and unskilled young people, who need a job to get some experience, even more than they need the money.

It is not a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge that minimum wage laws reduce employment opportunities for the young and the unskilled of any age. It has been happening around the world, for generation after generation, and in the most diverse countries.

It is not just the young who are affected when minimum wage rates are set according to the fashionable notions of third parties, with little or no regard for whether everyone is productive enough to be worth paying the minimum wage they set. (thomas Sowell)

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurants across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.”

Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.” ..,

“Washington Restaurant Association’s Anthony Anton puts it this way: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.”

In reference to that last quote, it’s certainly a math problem for the restaurant owners, but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that it’s a political problem for the social justice warriors who shoved this initiative through. Of course, the problems in question are all too real for the workers who are now “benefiting” from having their wages bumped up by more than 50% in some cases, and it involves some calculating as well. Our friend Bruce McQuain asks the question which puts this whole math issue in focus. What’s $15 times zero again?

Are there alternatives to closing? Sure. But they’re the same ones we’ve talked about for years:

Restaurant owners, expecting to operate on thinner margins, have tried to adapt in several ways including “higher menu prices, cheaper, lower-quality ingredients, reduced opening times, and cutting work hours and firing workers,” according to The Seattle Times and Seattle Eater magazine. As the Washington Policy Center points out, when these strategies are not enough, businesses close, “workers lose their jobs and the neighborhood loses a prized amenity.”

Welcome to the land of $17 dollar cheeseburgers. And, as you can figure out fairly quickly, everything else will be more expensive too … which, of course, erodes the purchasing power of that $15 wage. More importantly, if you work for one of those establishments that is closing, your wage is $15 times zero hours, isn’t it?

Bigger companies who can absorb the financial hit from implementing new technology have already been preparing for these changes. McDonald’s has been experimenting with point of sale automation for taking orders and Applebee’s rolled out smart tablets at tables in multiple locations last year. The latter solution is the most interesting to me because it seems like the easiest for younger consumers to adapt to. Most of the people going out to eat in such places are already familiar with laptops, tablets and smart phones anyway. Having one waiting at the table which takes the place of not only the menu, but the waitress as well, isn’t going to come as much of a shock to the system.

I ran into one of these setups at the Philadelphia airport this winter and they work surprisingly well. If you plan to pay by credit or debit card (which is the only option in some cases) you barely interact with a human at all. You browse the drinks and food on the touch screen, place your order, swipe your card, and a short while later somebody strolls up with your food and beverage, says hello and drops them off. It’s a terribly impersonal service as compared to a bartender or waitress who stops to chat with you, but it gets the job done.

Of course, that last phrase is the big issue here, isn’t it? It gets the job done. That job used to be done by a person. Now it’s essentially a robot. So those workers are no longer on the payroll, but hopefully they’ll catch on someplace else. Unfortunately, as Seattle is finding out, employers who run single outlets and don’t have the backing and buffer range of a major chain often won’t be able to make the shift in technological infrastructure required to cut back on staffing while staying open. Those folks will shut down, and it’s apparently already beginning in Washington state. (hot air)

Back to Mr Sowell:

Low-income minorities are often hardest hit by the unemployment that follows in the wake of minimum wage laws. The last year when the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was 1930, the last year before there was a federal minimum wage law.

The following year, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was passed, requiring minimum wages in the construction industry. This was in response to complaints that construction companies with non-union black construction workers were able to underbid construction companies with unionized white workers (whose unions would not admit blacks).

Looking back over my own life, I realize now how lucky I was when I left home in 1948, at the age of 17, to become self-supporting. The unemployment rate for 16- and 17-year-old blacks at that time was under 10 percent. Inflation had made the minimum wage law, passed ten years earlier, irrelevant.

But it was only a matter of time before liberal compassion led to repeated increases in the minimum wage, to keep up with inflation. The annual unemployment rate for black teenagers has never been less than 20 percent in the past 50 years, and has ranged as high as over 50 percent.

You can check these numbers in a table of official government statistics on page 42 of Professor Walter Williams’ book “Race and Economics.”

Incidentally, the black-white gap in unemployment rates for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds was virtually non-existent back in 1948. But the black teenage unemployment rate has been more than double that for white teenagers for every year since 1971.

This is just one of many policies that allow liberals to go around feeling good about themselves, while leaving havoc in their wake.

But they “feel” so good about themselves and you’re so “greedy” if you disagree.

President Obama’s former campaign operation is asking supporters to choose the most “embarrassing” Republican climate change deniers in a March Madness-style fundraising email.

Organizing For Action sent the “Climate Change Fantasy Tournament” message to liberal supporters Monday, asking them to choose among the “Embarrassing Eight,” modeled after the popular playoff brackets in which college basketball fans try to pick the winner of the annual NCAA tournament.

The fact that Global warming is a fantasy will not, ironically, occur to them. :)

The GOP roster includes Speaker John Boeher of Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

“We’re getting even closer to crowning our champion, the worst climate change denier in the country,” said Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, in the email. “These folks have made it this far because they’re deeply committed to publicly denying the science behind climate change.”

He said the advocacy group will “make sure we celebrate the winner — in a very public way — back in their home district.”

The message doubles as a fundraiser. If the viewer chooses Mr. McConnell over Mr. Inhofe, for example, the next screen offers donation options ranging from $15 to $1,000 or more to OFA. (WT)

The pathetic parsing and dishonest dissembling (excuse the redundancy, I was going for alliteration), on display in her U.N. press conference is exactly what you’d see from Madame President. For 30 years, Hillary Clinton has been defensive bordering on paranoia (with occasional forays far over the border). For 30 years, Hillary Clinton has responded to every challenge — not just every scandal, but every challenge (like HillaryCare) — by convening huge task forces of loyalists.

For 30 years, she’s hidden from making tough decisions until events forced her to make them. For 30 years she’s relied on the counsel of Wormtongues like Sidney Blumenthal.

As I wrote before her press conference: Eventually, Clinton will emerge to answer questions about her private email system and her alleged failure to provide relevant documents to Congress. How forthcoming she’ll be, and on what timetable, depends on how big a mess she’s in. But let’s assume there are no damning emails lurking anyplace where they can still be found. Or even give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she did nothing wrong. Her utterly typical response so far still raises questions that are more interesting than “Where’s Hillary?”

Is this how she would run her presidency? Do we want a president whose first response to trouble is to retreat to her bunker? Hillary wants Americans to think that a Clinton Restoration will bring back the economy and global peace of the 1990s. (Leave aside the poltroonish notion that electing her would bend the universe back two decades.) So the last thing Hillary Clinton needs at this stage is to telegraph to the world that a Clinton Restoration will also restore the metaphysical tackiness that came with their rule. And yet that is exactly what she’s doing, not merely by deploying her minions but by once again donning the blouse of victimhood and exercising the same legalistic prevarications that made “parsing” a household word in the 1990s.

How to Listen to a Clinton- Oh, one quick point about that press conference, and really all statements by the Clintons. This is really just a tip for the young’ns who didn’t live through the Clinton era. When listening to a Clinton, the trick is to listen to what they’re not saying. Bill Clinton is, naturally, the master of such things. Listening to him tell the truth is like listening to one hand clapping. Hillary has no natural gifts for lying, but she has studied at the feet of the master for most of her adult life. The result is that she can play the notes well enough, but she can’t quite find the magic in the music. So at her press conference this week, she said, “I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material.” She doesn’t say whether she received any classified material. She then says, “There is no classified material.”

As A. B. Stoddard noted on Special Report last night, “is” is the Clinton’s favorite verb. Bill breathed new life into it and she’s keeping the flame alive. Then Hillary said: In going through the e-mails, there were over 60,000 in total, sent and received. About half were work-related and went to the State Department and about half were personal that were not in any way related to my work. I had no reason to save them, but that was my decision because the federal guidelines are clear and the State Department request was clear. She goes on in this vein. “I didn’t see any reason to keep them.” And so on. This makes it sound like in the natural course of events her e-mails would just go away. “I chose not to keep all those wire hangers when I moved.” “Let’s not save the rest of this pizza because we’re going on vacation tomorrow. Just throw it out.” But, as Jack Shafer notes, what Hillary really means when she says she didn’t “keep” the e-mails is, “I ordered my staff to delete the e-mails.”

If you say “didn’t keep,” it sounds innocent. If you say, “I destroyed them,” it sounds Nixonian. Also left out is the manner in which she erased them. She makes it sound like it was all junk about yoga routines and wedding planning. But even she doesn’t know that. Clinton’s team did keyword searches for official e-mails, culled those out of the pile, and then simply destroyed the rest. Such searches, I am told, do not search file attachments. This is the electronic-records equivalent of grabbing your “official” payroll records and then pouring gasoline on all of your off-book records and throwing a match on the floor as you walk out. In fact, I’m kind of amazed that Hillary Clinton didn’t ask Al Sharpton for some “IT help.”

After all, it’s a short trip from Harlem to Chappaqua, even with the back of your Escalade loaded with cans of gasoline.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Mrs. Clinton plans on running for president with a bold and exciting platform of not having male genitalia. She’s far more open about this agenda than Barack Obama was about his — usually unstated — vow to be the first black president of the United States. It’s not a terrible strategy, necessarily, though I think it has more flaws than have been widely discussed. We’ll leave those flaws for a future date. (That’s the great advantage of the Clintons — if you’ve got a criticism to make about them, they’ll always provide you with an opportunity down the road to make it again. It’s a bit like having a surface-to-air missile system you really wanted to use against Godzilla; there’s always another Godzilla attack coming.) Here’s the problem. No human being is a category of person. Categories are abstractions instantiated in our minds that we use to organize experiences. Don’t take my word for it, just ask Aristotle. Yes, all human beings fall into various categories of people. But those categories don’t tell you all that much about the people within them. Imagine you own an auto-repair business. You need to hire a new mechanic. One day a guy named Todd shows up and applies for the position. Todd just happens to be a seven-foot-tall, gay, left-handed, Muslim Asian-American with a unibrow and a mild form of Tourette’s syndrome. In his off hours he’s a big fan of anarcho-capitalist short stories, but he votes for the Green Party in every election. In short, Todd’s an interesting guy. He’s also a fantastic mechanic. And once you can get past the fact that he occasionally shouts “Your mother sews socks that smell”* and “Allahu akbar! This muffler is a mess!” you realize he’s a huge asset to your business. Then one day Todd tells you that he’s going to quit because he wants to help his boyfriend Chad open a homoerotic necrophilia-themed nightclub in Miami called “Hanging Chad’s.” Now you need a new mechanic. Odds are that when you post the job listing at Monster.com or wherever, you won’t list any of those things as requirements. “Seeking Very Tall Gay Muslim Who Likes Randian Fan Fiction, Voted for Nader, and Who Shouts Profanity at Awkward Moments to Fix Cars. Must Have Unibrow and Supply Own Set of Left-Handed Tools”: This is not the best way to attract the best mechanic. In other words, categories are interesting, even important, but they don’t tell you as much about a person as some claim. It’s perfectly fine to want a woman to be president of the United States. All things being equal, I guess I might prefer it, too. But the question before the country isn’t, “Should we elect a category?” It’s, “Should we elect Hillary Clinton?” And these are wildly different questions. She’d “accomplish” being the first female president in the first second of her presidency. She’d then be Hillary Clinton for the next 126 million seconds of her presidency (Someone will check my math, I’m sure). When someone asks, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a female president?” the correct answer, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to be sure, is “Yes.” When asked, “Wouldn’t it be great to have Hillary Clinton as president?” The correct answer, again with varying degrees of enthusiasm, is “Oh, dear God, no. No, no, no. No.” What Hillary Clinton is trying to do is to make these questions synonymous. If you’re against having Hillary Clinton as president, you’re against having a woman president. It was a game that Barack Obama played with some sophistication. The “Ready for Hillary” crowd is about as subtle as a case of the clap. Which brings me back to where I started. The thrill of having a woman president — even if you’re the kind of person who gets thrilled by such things — will be temporary, at least for most of us. The tedious, grating ache, that another President Clinton would generate will last a lot longer. Hillary Clinton wants people to think voting for her will deliver something new, fresh, and exciting. What this utterly typical PR fiasco shows is that what they’ll actually get is familiar, tired, pathetic, dishonest, and embarrassing. (jonah Goldberg)

Because Liberals ARE like elementary school bullies with the intimidation tactics and the name calling and threats.

Raising the stakes in President Obama’s dispute with the Senate over Iran policy, the White House is now “hosting” an online petition accusing Republicans of being traitors. They look foolish in doing so.

But it makes them feel good. Of course, only the hard core would go for it, but that’s not the point. It’s an intimidation tactic.

Let’s see if the non-confrontational RINO’s cave in yet again when they get a wedgie from the school bully.

Schoolyard name-calling should be beneath any White House (but it hasn’t been), but apparently not this one. The petition, which media reports suggest has garnered 200,000 signatories, calls for charging the 47 senators who signed an open letter to Iran as “traitors.”

Traitors to the Progressive Socialist Neville Chamberlain cause, that is.

Benghazi, The IRS Scandal, Fast & Furious, and the host of others are the fault of “someone else” so it doesn’t apply to them. :)

More specifically, some on the left want the government to enforce the Logan Act against the Republican senators, dragging from the closet a nearly-forgotten 1798 law that hasn’t been enforced in over 200 years.

Leave it to a Progressive to go digging for it, but they can’t find “illegal” means “illegal” anywhere. Or Islamic Terrorist, even it is written down for them in the ISIS charter, The Hamas Charter and so on.

I wonder if the Progressive worker bee that found this little nugget for his King got a reward?

This goes back to you can’t talk about Obama and his associations with known domestic terrorists in his youth, but you can make up lies about George W Bush during WWII, that’s perfectly acceptable to the Left.

This is the mindset you’re dealing with.

Funny how fast those on the left are to use a law they once decried as an example of the fascist roots of the American founding. And the Logan Act isn’t even about treason but rather dealing with foreign governments without authorization. Not the same thing at all.

As Allahpundit at HotAir.com accurately notes, “One will get you three years in the pen, the other will get you lethal injection.” A big difference.

Regardless, the idea that the Republicans who signed the letter to Iran’s leaders are guilty of treason is, on the face of it, absurd. As Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto noted Thursday, however, the Constitution’s own definition of treason shows how silly this charge is.

The Progressive don’t care. It fits their Narrative so they’ll run with it, distort it, and make it up as they go.

It states: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

Let’s make it plain: The 47 senators do not want Iran’s terrorist-supporting mullahs to get nuclear weapons. In fact, their letter, whether you think it wise or not, sounds more like a warning to Iran than anything else.

Hard to see how that’s “giving them aid and comfort.” Just the opposite, actually.

But The Republicans are Enemies of The State. :)

Meanwhile, Obama is doing his best to fan the flames of this bizarre online petition movement, calling the Senate action “close to unprecedented.”

So was Executive Amnesty, but since that was for The Agenda, it was righteously made and defended. You racist! :)

This too is absurd. In 2007, then senators Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton appeared at a town hall meeting at which they trashed President Bush and encouraged our withdrawal from Iraq.

Which was just politics of negativism. Obama once said it was “unpatriotic” to have a $9 Trillion Dollar debt, but he’ll ring up at least that much by the time he leaves office. Is he “unpatriotic”? Of course not. Besides, that debt was George W. Bush’s Fault and was necessary for “the middle class” and “poor” people. :)

That comes closer to the Constitution’s definition of “treason” than anything the Senate did. There are many other examples. To call a serious political dispute treason is beyond the pale, the kind of thing dictators do.

Well, at least according to a top United Nations official who warned that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth” by the year 2000 if nothing was done to stop global warming.

Well, they weren’t wipe out by nature, but they were wiped out by Liberals. But I am glad that didn’t happen so we can just forget about all this Global Warming crap then, eh? :)

The dire warning came from a top U.N. official in 1989, warning that mankind only had a 10-year window to stop global warming before it went beyond human ability to reverse. But 15 years after the warning, no nations have been wiped off the planet because of global warming, and global temperatures have not warmed nearly as much as most climate models predicted.

The San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

Brown, who was the director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, warned that “[c]oastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ threatening political chaos.” Brown added that “governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human” ability to stop it.

But 2000 came and went with little fanfare, and not a single nation has been “wiped out” or even come close.

The New York Times reported last November that global warming-induced food shortages had already toppled governments, but then quickly retracted the remark because the claim is not true.

But it made them feel good. Disasters make Liberals feel good for some reason.

U.N. officials and climate scientists, however, are still warning that sea level rise threatens to flood coastal cities and that more extreme weather events will create millions of climate refugees.

15 years later and they are still waiting for their own apocalypse, isn’t that cute.

“Climate change is a threat to our very existence,” writes Michael Møller, acting head of U.N.’s Geneva office. “Wherever we live and whatever we do. We all contribute to it. And we all have a responsibility to do something about it.”

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! OMG! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE IF YOU DON’T SUBJECT TO OUR ABSOLUTE RULE IMMEDIATELY! :)

The U.N. and other groups are calling for countries to drastically cut carbon dioxide emissions to avoid warming of 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

Except for China, the #1 Polluter because China has told them to piss off!

“We have no time to waste, and much to gain by moving quickly down a lower-carbon pathway. All countries must be part of the solution if we are to stay below the 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise threshold,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

SUBMIT OR DIE! (kinda sounds like ISIS). :)

The International Energy Agency says that 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions must be cut to avoid warming over 2 degrees Celsius — meaning that fossil fuels would either have to be totally revamped or done away with completely to meet the 2 degree threshold.

Boy Horse and Buggy sales will skyrocket! And Candles will make a come back. But how will I power my iPhone by wind power?

“A continuation of current trends – which saw overall electricity emissions increase by 75% between 1990 and 2011, due to rising demand but little change in emissions intensity – would dangerously drive up electricity-related emissions,” IEA found in a recent report.

But what the U.N. and IEA leave out is that carbon dioxide emissions stemming from fossil fuel use has skyrocketed since 2000 — the predicted doomsday. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have grown from about 370 parts per million in 2000 to more than 400 parts per million in February 2015.

But while CO2 concentrations have skyrocketed, global average temperatures have stagnated for the last 15 to 20 years depending on what measurements are used. Surface temperature data shows little to no warming trend for the last 15 years or so.

Satellite data, which measures the lowest parts of Earth’s atmosphere, shows warming stalled for more than 18 years. (DC)

Some wonder why conservatives get the impression that many leftists are not patriotic. Well, how about their belief that the ideas of nationalism and patriotism are noxious? We told you!

Or that wearing a Flag T-Shirt on Cinco De Mayo is a racist act that just incites violence.

As you’ve probably heard by now, Associated Students of the University of California, Irvine voted to ban the American flag from an “inclusive” space on campus. Don’t you just love loaded liberal words, such as “inclusive,” which mean the opposite of what they imply? Is the American flag includable there?

The language of the bill, passed by a vote of 6-4, with two abstentions (some real courage there), asserts that flags “construct cultural mythologies and narratives that in turn charge nationalistic sentiments” and that “flags construct paradigms of conformity and sets (sic) homogenized standards for others to obtain which in this country typically are idolized as freedom, equality, and democracy.”

A group of university professors has signed a letter showing their solidarity with students who tried to ban the American flag at the University of California, Irvine – because they said Old Glory contributes to racism.

“U.S. nationalism often contributes to racism and xenophobia, and that the paraphernalia of nationalism is in fact often used to intimidate,” read a letter obtained by the website Campus Reform.

Before proceeding, let me pause briefly to thank my parents for raising me to recognize such psychobabble for what it is and God for the discernment to filter it. This kind of thinking is amazing but is the logical extension of modern leftism.

To quote the old Ginsu knife ad, “But wait; there’s more.” The bill also claims that the American flag “has been flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism” and that “symbolism has negative and positive aspects that are interpreted differently by individuals.” Well, what do you know? People have different interpretations? What could be more dangerous?

Now for the zinger — and where this line of thinking often ends up: “Freedom of speech, in a space that aims to be as inclusive as possible can be interpreted as hate speech.”

Following the disturbing preamble, the bill includes these resolutions: “Let it be resolved that ASUCI make every effort to make the Associated Students main lobby space as inclusive as possible … that no flag, of any nation, may be hanged on the walls of the Associate Student (sic) main lobby space … (and) that if a decorative item is in the Associate student (sic) lobby space and issues arise, the solution will be to remove the item if there is considerable request to do so.”

These are your tax dollars at work, training students to be ready for a job upon graduation — at community organizing.

After news reports of this insanity, Breitbart News spoke to a UCI student who said she had heard a member of the ASUCI discussing “the (American) flag and how it triggered people.” “Trigger,” she said, was the word the person used, as in “the flag triggers me.” Oh, boy. She speculated that one motivation for the student bill was to prevent “illegal citizens” from feeling bad.

To their credit, UCI administrators stated that they did not endorse the bill, calling its passage a “misguided decision,” and the student body’s executive cabinet vetoed the bill.

But the controversy and angst over the matter continue as a group of university professors signed a letter supporting the students who attempted to ban the flag. Their rationale? They wrote, “U.S. nationalism often contributes to racism and xenophobia, and … the paraphernalia of nationalism is in fact often used to intimidate.” And: “We admire the courage of the resolution’s supports amid this environment of political immaturity and threat, and support them unequivocally.”

I am not sure what these pointy-heads are referring to with “political immaturity and threat,” but it’s obvious that — typical of leftists — they are projecting. You will notice that the intolerance, immaturity “hate” and agitation involved in this brouhaha are coming from those denouncing Old Glory, not those displaying it proudly. These malcontents said not just “nationalism” but “U.S. nationalism,” and they didn’t show a smidgen of concern for the free expression rights of those displaying the flag.

This is the very mentality that leads people such as President Obama to mock the notion of American exceptionalism. They have a desire to defer important national matters to international bodies, have a gross underappreciation for the U.S. Constitution and advocate open borders. They see themselves as citizens of the world, perhaps more than of the United States.

Why would you care about people flooding illegally across our borders if you are not keen on protecting America’s unique system of liberty? Why would you want immigrants to be required to go through a naturalization process whereby they learn the basics of American civics in order to attain citizenship if you don’t believe our system is special?

I’ll tell you what is offensive and unacceptable, and that is the ongoing distortion of the language employed by these bullies to suggest that positive pride in our nation equates to fear and hatred of foreigners and racism. This is outrageously false, and only those who think that way are capable of accusing others of such warped thinking.

If you believe that the American flag is offensive and emblematic of racism and xenophobia, what’s next? Are you going to suggest that we fundamentally transform the United States of America? (David Limbaugh)

:)

Old Glory is something to be revered and honored, not pissed on as “racist” by left wing idiots who have no critical thinking skills to begin with.

In his new book, “Rules For Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again,” nationally-syndicated radio host and Townhall columnist Steve Deace created a strategic manual to help conservatives reclaim the nation. Deace’s book intends to equip conservatives with a playbook in the same way that Saul Alinsky’s 1971 book “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals” armed the Left.

I had the pleasure of hearing first-hand about Deace’s new release.

Townhall: Your book, as David Limbaugh said in the forward, is a “blueprint for victory.” How did you go about creating this roadmap?

Deace: Living in the first of the nation caucus state of Iowa gives you a front row seat to the sausage making factory. I’ve had a chance to be behind the scene or even participate, you know, volunteer or work for campaigns from president to state legislature. Iowa provides a very unique cross-section of political activism in your own backyard, where you don’t have to go anywhere to be involved in either federal, state, or local politics.

This blueprint is essentially a compilation of everything I’ve seen work and not work. There’s nothing new under the sun, but what I really wanted to do was put it together in a package where it could actually be something that would be a coordinated plan of attack. Something that would work in accordance with our worldview and not the other sides’. Because obviously if you’re putting your playbook out there you don’t want people to steal it from you so you wanted to craft it in a way that even if they tried to utilize it it wouldn’t work because it really is only for those that have a belief system based in the principles of American exceptionalism. Then you have to put it together in a way that is applicable and manageable.

Several times throughout the book you talk about a need for “3-D Thinking.” Can you explain what you mean by this?

I think that if we don’t have three dimensional thinking, then I don’t think any plan of attack we have will work. It helps us to understand both our own belief system and then what we are up against.

The first dimension is to understand why you believe what you believe. If you’re a Christian this is a commandment in the New Testament. St. Peter says you have to have an ‘apologia,’ or an apologetic reason; a ready defense for the hope that you have in your faith. So I think we have to know why we believe what we believe. That lays the foundation so that we can actually communicate in a relevant way that connects with people and changes hearts and minds and not just become talking point regurgitators.

The second dimension is, you need to know why people believe what they believe. What is it that the other side of an argument or a conversation or a debate is coming to the table with? There is someone who might be in the middle and may be undecided. Why are they undecided? What is it that they believe that would cause them to then take the positions that they take? Again, this helps to establish a relationship which is really key in changing a lot of peoples’ minds.

And then the third dimension is to know why people believe what they believe about what we believe. What is it they think about what we think? What are the cliches, the stereotypes that they have in mind as they are engaging us? Where do they think we are coming from? So that we have an opportunity to go after, to tear down those strongholds and actually have a pertinent conversation where substance is being discussed and it’s not just ad hominem, or it’s not just a series of red herrings, or stereotypes, or demagoguery.

You discuss in the book why conservatives are losing, but can you flip that around and tell us why Democrats are winning?

Democrats are winning because the No. 1 thing they understand that we don’t, or that we don’t understand as shrewdly as they do, is that really it is not the base of an organization that determines how good it is. It is the head.

If you look at the trends, you would wonder: ‘why are we losing the country? Because in many areas it seems as if we’re winning.’ The movies that feature our values are dominating the box office, like “American Sniper.” We’re selling more books than ever before, we have more conferences to equip and encourage each other than ever before. We have more infrastructure to mobilize our grassroots than ever before. Most of the most successful media in the country at least leans our way.

Right now we have the fewest Democrats nationwide in the legislative branch that we’ve had in 86 years. That’s before the Great Depression. It doesn’t make much sense that the government doesn’t seem to shrink. Wages remain stagnated and the culture continues to spiral towards Gomorrah despite those things. I believe it’s because what the Left has done is they have practiced the principle of headship. They have realized that if you control the power center of an organization, it doesn’t matter what the base thinks. So, for example, we outnumber them five years in a row now we have been the dominant ideological group in Gallup polling as self-identified Conservatives, that’s never happened before in the history of a Gallup poll.

But what’s happened is they control the influence centers in academia, pop-culture, government, and now increasingly corporate America as well. And so even though we outnumber them, they outflank and therefore outmaneuver us. Until we get better leaders who are willing to do what it takes to win. Willing to take the criticism for doing that, and then have the winsomeness to change the hearts and minds of our countrymen, nothing is going to change regardless of the outcomes of elections and how many successful cottage industries we spawn.

If you could pick just one issue for conservatives restrategize, what would it be?

It would be the judiciary. That is because that has been the weapon of mass destruction of the Left for a generation. Everything that they have done the most damage to American exceptionalism has come via the courts. Every last thing. From illegal immigration, those are court rulings saying that children born of illegal aliens here are now citizens, those are court interpretations. Or that taxpayers have to pay for illegal aliens, much of that is Plyler v. Doe, for example, a court opinion. If you look at the marriage issue it began with Lawrence v. Texas on state sodomy laws, which the Supreme Court used foreign court precedent as the rationale for that decision.

Obamacare is still only the law, because John Roberts, a Republican appointee, literally rewrote the bill to be a tax even though the Obama attorneys claimed in their testimony before the High Court that it wasn’t a tax. He rewrote the bill as a tax to make it legal under the 16th Amendment, setting the precedent that if the government calls it a tax they can do to you whatever they want. I mean that is the height of judicial activism.

And the most infamous of them all: Roe v. Wade. State sanctioned child killing–nationwide with basically no limits.

These are all things that would not have passed muster at a ballot box, but have all been imposed by unelected judges via fiat, with no basis or constitutional standing or grounding at all.

I don’t care how smart your arguments are, I don’t care how principled you are, how much money you raise. If continue to allow your opposition to, unabated, pound you with their most potent weapon of mass destruction, you are going to lose.

Your book is all about how conservatives to win again. What will it take for conservative candidate to win in 2016?

You have to look at really what is the genesis of today’s political environment. It really is 1980. That was the ushering in of the Reagan Revolution, that was the beginning of the South to trend more conservative and therefore more Republican. That really was the ushering in of the current political landscape. And the reality is, since the 2000 election, the electoral college is pretty static. The presidential election for Republicans comes down to Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, you have to win those three states. So you have to look at the trend line that began your current environment and that is 1980.

If you look at every presidential election since 1980 that Republicans have won, they all have two things in common: No. 1, the nominee rallied the masses of evangelicals in the base during the primary. And then No. 2, the nominee was at least able to compete if not win middle class voters in the general. So any Republican presidential nominee who cannot energize the masses of evangelicals in the base, and/or compete for or win middle class voters in the general, cannot win.

It’s not the marriage issue, or the life issue that is hurting Republicans. What is killing the Republican Party more than anything else is that people in the middle class see them as a bunch of corporatist shills who don’t care about their needs or their plight. And they reinforce that when they do things like, ‘well we’re not going to raise the minimum wage’ (which I agree with) ‘but we are going to vote for a bunch of corporate welfare.’ You can’t do stuff like that and then expect people to vote for you in general elections. (townhall)